Feels like we're never going to get away from "Dude...just shut up and homebrew a subclass, moron" in this sort of discussion. As if nobody has ever had that thought before.
Hot take: people kept saying "just make a wizard subclass, you batch of freaking idiots" to all the folks who wanted the artificer, too. Wizards even tried that with their awful 'School of Invention' UA. The pushback was strongly against this plan, and what eventually became the artificer plays absolutely nothing like a wizard. There was no way to build a proper artificer into three or four crap-ass subclass features bolted into a framework that was not ever intended for those features. Now the actual artificer is here, it's amazing, and people are wondering if their favorite ideas might work better as a full class, too.
Why is that such an awful idea?
Hot take 2: Shaman as a 'Primal' half-caster, rather than a Magic Furry minus the fur. At 1st level a shaman chooses their Spirit Bond, a soul-deep connection to a primal force of nature which serves as their guardian, their advisor, and their power source. Some of these are animal spirits, such as Bear or Wolf. Some of them are facets of nature, such as the spirit of Storm or the spirit of Sea. One of them is Ancestral Host - a shaman who acts as a medium and channel for the collective spirits of their ancestors. Each different Spirit Bond provides its shaman with a different Mantle - an aura of primal magic that affects the shaman in a different way. The Bond also allows the shaman to invoke their guiding spirit actively, either conjuring the spirit briefly into the Material or allowing the shaman to draw on the spirit's power.
A Bear shaman's Spirit Mantle might grant him extra hit points, increased carrying capacity, and improved Strength; his Spirit Call manifests Bear as a Large creature with the 'Spirit of Bear' stat block that can rampage through his foes. A Storm shaman's Spirit Mantle might grant her access to Shocking Grasp and allow her to cast it with a 30-foot range as well as granting resistance to ranged attack damage from guardians winds; her Spirit Call allows her to shroud herself in a Hurricane Cloak which acts as Call Lightning, save that it doesn't require concentration and treats the shaman herself as the source of the lightning. An Ancestral Host shaman's Spirit Mantle grants him Expertise in History as he queries those who lived through it, the ability to cast Guidance on himself as a bonus action, and immunity to any sort of possession or domination ability. His Spirit Call can manifest as a spectral war band, surrounding the shaman and carving his enemies, or can imbue him with the bravery and power of those who came before him, granting him a variation of Tenser's Transformation.
Note - this is all drawn square from the seat of my pants. But I'm betting I could get more people than folks would think behind the idea of a Primal halfcaster whose tight communion with a guiding spirit of Nature grants them both passive and active supernatural benefits - and that many of the folks behind that idea would walk away in disgust if told "just...just make a FREAKING DRUID SUBCLASS, you incredible braindead loser!"
Hey, I am all for new classes if someone wants to show me a thought out design doc with a Shaman and subclasses or whatever else they want I will gladly look at it, but just tossing out loose ideas that have net been developed at all and ideas "all drawn square from the seat of my pants" are not going to get me on board or convince me that it shouldn't just be a subclass.
Saying "we should have a 'thing I like from this movie or tv show' class" without supporting it in any way is a sure fire way to have someone shut you down.
Side rant (not directed at anyone)
I love to homebrew and when I first started playing it was in a game at a store, one of the players was playing their home made cat race, it had ludicrous bonuses and he would do things like say "I climb that wall" - ok how? do you have a climbing speed, do you have claws that give you adv on the check? He would just try to say stuff without any explanation or having actually spent time to figure out the mechanic. He also would use spells he "converted" from past editions that were ridiculous and not properly converted. My point is, you can make this game whatever you want it to be, but you have to do so by spending some time developing your ideas.
If you just want to say "I wish there was x, can someone help me design it" great, but if all you are gonna do is throw out a generic concept with 0 detail then don't get upset when someone says that isn't enough for a new class.
This conversation has gotten me curious. If there were a “shaman” Class for 5e, what would people expect it to do?
So, suppose one could simply unbolt Wild Shape from the Druid, would that be a reasonable place to start as a Shaman? I suppose it would also have to swap/add spells to grant the shaman more divination and necromancy options in their spell list.
Once Wild Shape has been unbolted, what should replace it? Would it get a different main class feature, or would that be turned over for a variety of subclass features?
What iteration(s) should that replacement feature take?
What else, if anything, should be replaced?
Ideas?
I personally would like it to have magic, but essentially be a nature based warlock. They'd get Pact Magic (probably with a name change), nature based spells, support spells, and some kind of "eldritch invocation" called "Primal Totems" or something like that. They would have subclasses that would let them do different things, from having an animal companion, to focusing on melee combat, and so on.
I'm not in the mood right now to create a whole Shaman class, but that's my main idea for it.
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So no offense, but what you described is not a new class, it is a fighter subclass. You could develop a new fight subclass that would give you everything you listed.
Eh, not really, eldritch knight doesn't really do 'magic enhancing fighting'. It's more like an arcane variant paladin.
I didn't say what you described is an eldritch knight, I said you described a figter subclass and could build one
Yet an eldritch knight is stuck as a 1/3 caster, built around 4 attacks and action surge. It's a fighter with some party tricks.
A lot of people want something more like gishes from 3e, pathfinder, and 4e. Which had the duskblade, magus, and swordmage respectively. There were arcane half casters with their own unique set of completely unique core mechanics.
You could make paladin a fighter subclass. 1/3 cleric spells and a weak smite at 7th level. Or you would make barbarian a fighter subclass, which got a rage at 7th level. No one would be happy with them though.
So Ek is 1/3 caster? big deal. That has 0 impact on creating a fighter subclass that is a half caster and gets features that let "combine" the multiple attacks they get to do spells and attacks
I love to homebrew and when I first started playing it was in a game at a store, one of the players was playing their home made cat race, it had ludicrous bonuses and he would do things like say "I climb that wall" - ok how? do you have a climbing speed, do you have claws that give you adv on the check? He would just try to say stuff without any explanation or having actually spent time to figure out the mechanic. He also would use spells he "converted" from past editions that were ridiculous and not properly converted. My point is, you can make this game whatever you want it to be, but you have to do so by spending some time developing your ideas.
If you just want to say "I wish there was x, can someone help me design it" great, but if all you are gonna do is throw out a generic concept with 0 detail then don't get upset when someone says that isn't enough for a new class.
"Homebrew" is the basis of D&D - even the creators feel this way. Asking people to homebrew stuff is not wrong and the fact that people get annoyed at the suggestion that "If they want something make it yourself" rather than waiting the +4 years it is going to take WoTC to actually get around to doing it, is apparently such a ludicrous ask. D&D is a game about making stuff up - rule 0 the DM can do whatever they want.
Frankly I'd rather take any idea I have and just make it work than wait for an official rule-set - hence why I designed an entire subclass of artificer that makes food and food related objects for spell casting instead of just telling my player "sorry, cool concept but D&D doesn't have an official class for that." D&D didn;t have what I needed/wanted so I made it myself. And that has been the truth of D&D since First Edition.
I agree with you, give me a decent concept and I'll hep you make it, but if it is too broad we can't do anything.
There is zero chance anyone actually playing campaign style D&D can possibly have gone through every combination of class/ subclass/ race. There just isn't. More classes is ridiculous. Another 5-7 years, OK, then people might be getting through all of them. Until then, be quiet about new classes and play what we have, which is an immense library.
This sounds awfully like, "Sit down and eat your vegetables."
I can know what I want to play without having actually playing every single class for a year or more, thank you very much. There is a psionics vacancy in 5e, and will still be one after TCoE. There is a half-arcane melee caster vacancy in 5e, and I can still know that I would like one in the game without playing a Four Elements Monk. I know all of this the same way I knew before E:RftLW came out that I wanted an artificer class.
So help me understand, how would you build a half caster melee class? How would you do Psionic?
I never played previous editions, so I don't know exactly how the Magus was before. Perhaps someone else could give more specifics, but I would have it be an Intelligence based class, with a d10 hit dice, spell slots like paladins and rangers, a fighting style choice like paladins and rangers (from dueling, protection, two weapon fighting, great weapon master, and one that gives 2 wizard cantrips). They'd get Extra Attack, and abilities that are arcane-weapon based ones that would empower their attacks. They'd get a mix of some wizard spell, and maybe others specific to them.
Iamsposta is developing a Psion class that doesn't use Spellcasting. Basically that.
So no offense, but what you described is not a new class, it is a fighter subclass. You could develop a new fight subclass that would give you everything you listed.
It's not. We have an arcane fighter subclass, the Eldritch Knight, and it's a 3rd caster. The Magus would get extra attack, but not 3-4 attacks in the same action, like the Fighter does. The Magus would get up to 5th level spells, like the paladin, and not be limited to specific spell schools like the Eldritch Knight. Saying what I described is a "fighter subclass" is like saying the ranger or paladin are "fighter subclasses". It would be its own unique class with its own archetypes and subclasses.
Limiting a possible class to a mere subclass takes away so much versatility and creativity when making a character of that type.
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a class that more effectively captures the idea of being a bender from Avatar (Way of 4 Elements attempts to do this, but can't do it well) - could do with any caster really
I'd have to assume you've never actually watched AtlA then. There is a fairly small list of attack Cantrips, and only one of them fits a particular bending discipline -- Firebolt for firebending. Once you move beyond Cantrips, you're stuck with spellcasting and spell slots as the limiter. But there are only a handful of spells that even fit the concept of being a bender, and most of them are fire themed. So you can sort of make a firebender, maybe. But you'd have to explain how the spell Fireball actually fits into the context of being a firebender.
I have watched it and yeah, to actually make a "bender" class you would have to come up with a whole host of spells, or alternatively you could just add a feature so that you change the damage type of existing spells, water benders do ice damage, fire do fire, earth do bludgeoning, and air do, pick one, force/thunder/lightning and now you can make a subclass, you get to theme everything with your chosen element and you can tap into the already massive spell list the game has
Or.... they shouldn't be a caster. They should have a class feature, not unlike the Sun Soul, that lets them make a ranged attack, up to 30 foot range, that deals damage based on their Martial Arts die. But to use it, their hands must be free (pending subclass/element features). You know... like the characters in the show do.
So far I haven’t seen an answer to that short of ‘magus’ and I am unclear on what exactly they want in such a class as no one has provided details on what they would want such a class to do? Saying I want to cast spells and attack every turn isn’t a class.
Okay, well, let's take a crack at that then.
I've never played anything before 4e (briefly), so I'm unfamiliar with how classes from older editions worked, but from what I can gather the main draw of the Magus was that it's an arcane warrior with the ability to imbue spells into it's weapon strikes. So, for convenience's sake let's use both the Paladin and the Wizard as bases for comparison.
Let's start by making it a martial arcane half-caster (INT) with prepared spells and a fairly standard progression for things other martial half-casters normally get. Let's also give it an "arcane sense" that lets it detect magic (similarly to how the Paladin has Divine Sense to detect celestials/fiends/undead) and a 1/short rest 30 ft teleport that gains additional uses as you level to start with. Once it has spellcasting, let's give its main mechanic, the "spell strike"; from what I can understand, in past editions it allowed you to apply spells whenever you struck with a weapon, so there's two ways I can see to do this. The first would be to port the feature straight over, which may or may not fit seamlessly; the second would be to model it after the Paladin's Smite, only dealing less damage with an additional effect such as frighten, charm, stun, AOE, etc. Let's also give it Arcane Recovery, to give it a sense of truly being an arcane caster as well as a little crunch to help it. At higher levels, lets also give it a version of War Magic that allows it to make a BA attack whenever it uses it's Spell Strike, as well as something akin to the Wizard's higher-level abilities that gives it a couple free castings of chosen spells, and for a capstone...let's say, it becomes resistant to all nonmagical damage and gains a bonus of some kind to saving throws against spells.
There, we now have a blueprint for an arcane half-caster. It needs a ton of fleshing out, considering I pulled it pretty much out from my ass, but in terms of flavor and mechanics I feel there's enough there for it to be able to stand apart on it's own (and let's be honest, there's less separating many of the core classes from each other than most people are willing to admit).
I could literally write you a fighter subclass right now that gets all of that if you want
Actually, no you couldn't. You could certainly try, but if you made a fighter subclass with full half-caster progression with it's own saving throw and skill proficiencies, plus the features I mentioned, people would complain it was overpowered and demand it be nerfed. Plus, it would still have features from the base Fighter Chassis that I'm not looking to use. Plus, it would not have it's own chassis for me to have my own subclass features to slot in and customize like other classes would. I would be stuck with playing the same exact thing over and over again.
As to it retaining features you won't use, ok, but that doesn't mean that other people wouldn't use them. And on it not being its own class, you've barely described it at all, the features you listed are not enough to be core features of a new class and you have given 0 details on what a subclass would do. I would be happy to help you design a magus class, but so far, everything you've asked for are ingredients of a subclass, not a class.
@AaronWho: Asking someone to pull an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal out of thin air in a discussion thread like this is obviously a no-go. If anybody had that sort of proposal ready, they wouldn't waste it on an argument like this. I could give an elevator pitch for a half-caster Shaman class with unusually impactful/important subclasses that actually change the way the Shaman plays, I could deliver that. I cannot deliver an entire UA class proposal, and I'm pretty sure you know that. It's beyond the scope of this thread. Kind of a disingenuous ask, to boot - "if you're not willing to design an entire class for me, on the spot, in a couple of minutes, sod off and go make subclasses".
Quite the unfair bar, hm?
@HollowTPM: Homebrew may be the 'basis of D&D'. It is also a total freaking nightmare to implement here on DDB. Much of anything beyond the most mild and ordinary of possible ideas is either flat-out impossible to get working in the digital sheet or requires such arcane counter-intuitive nonsense that it can take dozens of hours of trial and error just to get something together that's sort-of maybe close enough that a crafty DM could instruct a player on how to maybe use the feature with their character. Sort of. if they're lucky.
Until the homebrew tools improve dramatically and allow people to do things like custom base classes, custom spell progression, or many other things that are currently just straight-up, flat-out impossible to do in DDB's homebrew? People are going to call for Wizards to do it instead. because Wizards forcing DDB to implement something is the only time this service ever actually implements anything outside adding a +1 modifier to something.
As to it retaining features you won't use, ok, but that doesn't mean that other people wouldn't use them. And on it not being its own class, you've barely described it at all, the features you listed are not enough to be core features of a new class and you have given 0 details on what a subclass would do. I would be happy to help you design a magus class, but so far, everything you've asked for are ingredients of a subclass, not a class.
You don't seem to understand the development process. You start with an idea, and kick it around a little to refine it. You then build on that idea to flesh it out into something that mechanically is functional. Then you evaluate for balance and redistribute power as necessary.
We're at the first step, identifying and solidifying an idea. You seem to think we're on the third step, evaluating for balance.
hence why I designed an entire subclass of artificer that makes food and food related objects for spell casting
Was that you, with the recipes and the different courses? I remember giving some notes to someone in a thread, but couldn’t remember the username and didn’t feel like digging through all of my posts to find it. Was that you?!?
a class that more effectively captures the idea of being a bender from Avatar (Way of 4 Elements attempts to do this, but can't do it well) - could do with any caster really
I'd have to assume you've never actually watched AtlA then. There is a fairly small list of attack Cantrips, and only one of them fits a particular bending discipline -- Firebolt for firebending. Once you move beyond Cantrips, you're stuck with spellcasting and spell slots as the limiter. But there are only a handful of spells that even fit the concept of being a bender, and most of them are fire themed. So you can sort of make a firebender, maybe. But you'd have to explain how the spell Fireball actually fits into the context of being a firebender.
I have watched it and yeah, to actually make a "bender" class you would have to come up with a whole host of spells, or alternatively you could just add a feature so that you change the damage type of existing spells, water benders do ice damage, fire do fire, earth do bludgeoning, and air do, pick one, force/thunder/lightning and now you can make a subclass, you get to theme everything with your chosen element and you can tap into the already massive spell list the game has
Or.... they shouldn't be a caster. They should have a class feature, not unlike the Sun Soul, that lets them make a ranged attack, up to 30 foot range, that deals damage based on their Martial Arts die. But to use it, their hands must be free (pending subclass/element features). You know... like the characters in the show do.
Ok, so it isn't a caster, it is a monk subclass that gets to pick an element, each element has its own features that it gets at certain levels so a fire and air don't play the same, still sounds like a subclass to me?
hence why I designed an entire subclass of artificer that makes food and food related objects for spell casting
Was that you, with the recipes and the different courses? I remember giving some notes to someone in a thread, but couldn’t remember the username and didn’t feel like digging through all of my posts to find it. Was that you?!?
Yep that was me. Since the thread died very quickly I never actually posted the full subclass idea (it's not going public because frankly with the rate my game is going we'll be level 3 by 2030) but you gave a lot of good ideas for that and I did end up switching the entire general mechanic around thanks to your ideas. Had a lot of fun with it too :D
@AaronWho: Asking someone to pull an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal out of thin air in a discussion thread like this is obviously a no-go. If anybody had that sort of proposal ready, they wouldn't waste it on an argument like this. I could give an elevator pitch for a half-caster Shaman class with unusually impactful/important subclasses that actually change the way the Shaman plays, I could deliver that. I cannot deliver an entire UA class proposal, and I'm pretty sure you know that. It's beyond the scope of this thread. Kind of a disingenuous ask, to boot - "if you're not willing to design an entire class for me, on the spot, in a couple of minutes, sod off and go make subclasses".
Quite the unfair bar, hm?
I never said you had to have "an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal". I said that I want something that has had thought put into it. Saying "there should be Shaman" though, even in a discussion thread, is lazy. Give me something to work with.
hence why I designed an entire subclass of artificer that makes food and food related objects for spell casting
Was that you, with the recipes and the different courses? I remember giving some notes to someone in a thread, but couldn’t remember the username and didn’t feel like digging through all of my posts to find it. Was that you?!?
Yep that was me. Since the thread died very quickly I never actually posted the full subclass idea (it's not going public because frankly with the rate my game is going we'll be level 3 by 2030) but you gave a lot of good ideas for that and I did end up switching the entire general mechanic around thanks to your ideas. Had a lot of fun with it too :D
Hey, I am super glad it worked out!! Please do me a favor and copy/paste it into a PM or something. I would love to see what all you came up with!
(Now if I could just find that other person with the mobility specialized fighter based off of the Battle Master/Arcane Archer mashup!)
@HollowTPM: Homebrew may be the 'basis of D&D'. It is also a total freaking nightmare to implement here on DDB.
I wouldn’t say that they are wonderful or anything, but “total freaking nightmare” is a bit stronk.
I mean; I never implied that people's published homebrews were good. Like the ones I created for my campaign are only good for these characters and the world I made. Just because DDB has a lot of meh homebrew doesn't make anything I said wrong. When the creators of a system say "change whatever you don't like" they basically said homebrew to make the game what you want it to be.
@HollowTPM: Homebrew may be the 'basis of D&D'. It is also a total freaking nightmare to implement here on DDB.
I wouldn’t say that they are wonderful or anything, but “total freaking nightmare” is a bit stronk.
I mean; I never implied that people's published homebrews were good. Like the ones I created for my campaign are only good for these characters and the world I made. Just because DDB has a lot of meh homebrew doesn't make anything I said wrong. When the creators of a system say "change whatever you don't like" they basically said homebrew to make the game what you want it to be.
I think you got mixed up with this one, you should be responding to this post:
@AaronWho: Asking someone to pull an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal out of thin air in a discussion thread like this is obviously a no-go. If anybody had that sort of proposal ready, they wouldn't waste it on an argument like this. I could give an elevator pitch for a half-caster Shaman class with unusually impactful/important subclasses that actually change the way the Shaman plays, I could deliver that. I cannot deliver an entire UA class proposal, and I'm pretty sure you know that. It's beyond the scope of this thread. Kind of a disingenuous ask, to boot - "if you're not willing to design an entire class for me, on the spot, in a couple of minutes, sod off and go make subclasses".
Quite the unfair bar, hm?
I never said you had to have "an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal". I said that I want something that has had thought put into it. Saying "there should be Shaman" though, even in a discussion thread, is lazy. Give me something to work with.
"Lazy?" Come on, now you're insulting us? We literally never did that, don't go there.
We have put thought into it, but I know that I don't have the time and energy to create a Shaman class up to level 20 when no one besides someone random on the internet has asked me to.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Or.... they shouldn't be a caster. They should have a class feature, not unlike the Sun Soul, that lets them make a ranged attack, up to 30 foot range, that deals damage based on their Martial Arts die. But to use it, their hands must be free (pending subclass/element features). You know... like the characters in the show do.
Ok, so it isn't a caster, it is a monk subclass that gets to pick an element, each element has its own features that it gets at certain levels so a fire and air don't play the same, still sounds like a subclass to me?
It could be. But that has its own problems. Monks do not get subclass features until level 3, where as benders have their abilities practically from birth. I'm also hesitant to give all benders, wholesale, Unarmored Defense, Ki abilities in their entirety, Deflect Missiles (Air would obviously get this, but not Fire), Slow Fall (again, Air would, others would not), etc. Nevermind that it would inevitably be too similar to both the Sun Soul and the Way of 4 Elements, and likely invalidate both of those subclasses simply by existing.
Frankly, the only base class feature of the Monk that I see making sense on a bender would be Martial Arts. Honorable mentions to Air, though.
I wonder if standard rules for Class Feature Replacement would fly. For example
Bard: replace Bardic Inspiration (bards are decent alternatives to an eldritch knight or arcane trickster, but the bardic inspiration is out of theme), or replace Spellcasting (aka the 4e warlord, though that could probably also be a fighter variant)
Druid: replace Wild Shape (it just doesn't fit some themes) or replace Spellcasting (aka the 3.5e Shifter)
Monk: there's a need for a non-mystical Brawler. Replace Ki, probably change the stat basis from Wis to Con.
Paladin: replace the divine theme with an arcane (or possibly psionic) theme, possibly changing the stat basis and spell lists.
Rogue: replace sneak attack, there's a role for "skill monkey that doesn't backstab and isn't a bard
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Hey, I am all for new classes if someone wants to show me a thought out design doc with a Shaman and subclasses or whatever else they want I will gladly look at it, but just tossing out loose ideas that have net been developed at all and ideas "all drawn square from the seat of my pants" are not going to get me on board or convince me that it shouldn't just be a subclass.
Saying "we should have a 'thing I like from this movie or tv show' class" without supporting it in any way is a sure fire way to have someone shut you down.
Side rant (not directed at anyone)
I love to homebrew and when I first started playing it was in a game at a store, one of the players was playing their home made cat race, it had ludicrous bonuses and he would do things like say "I climb that wall" - ok how? do you have a climbing speed, do you have claws that give you adv on the check? He would just try to say stuff without any explanation or having actually spent time to figure out the mechanic. He also would use spells he "converted" from past editions that were ridiculous and not properly converted. My point is, you can make this game whatever you want it to be, but you have to do so by spending some time developing your ideas.
If you just want to say "I wish there was x, can someone help me design it" great, but if all you are gonna do is throw out a generic concept with 0 detail then don't get upset when someone says that isn't enough for a new class.
I personally would like it to have magic, but essentially be a nature based warlock. They'd get Pact Magic (probably with a name change), nature based spells, support spells, and some kind of "eldritch invocation" called "Primal Totems" or something like that. They would have subclasses that would let them do different things, from having an animal companion, to focusing on melee combat, and so on.
I'm not in the mood right now to create a whole Shaman class, but that's my main idea for it.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
So Ek is 1/3 caster? big deal. That has 0 impact on creating a fighter subclass that is a half caster and gets features that let "combine" the multiple attacks they get to do spells and attacks
"Homebrew" is the basis of D&D - even the creators feel this way. Asking people to homebrew stuff is not wrong and the fact that people get annoyed at the suggestion that "If they want something make it yourself" rather than waiting the +4 years it is going to take WoTC to actually get around to doing it, is apparently such a ludicrous ask. D&D is a game about making stuff up - rule 0 the DM can do whatever they want.
Frankly I'd rather take any idea I have and just make it work than wait for an official rule-set - hence why I designed an entire subclass of artificer that makes food and food related objects for spell casting instead of just telling my player "sorry, cool concept but D&D doesn't have an official class for that." D&D didn;t have what I needed/wanted so I made it myself. And that has been the truth of D&D since First Edition.
I agree with you, give me a decent concept and I'll hep you make it, but if it is too broad we can't do anything.
It's not. We have an arcane fighter subclass, the Eldritch Knight, and it's a 3rd caster. The Magus would get extra attack, but not 3-4 attacks in the same action, like the Fighter does. The Magus would get up to 5th level spells, like the paladin, and not be limited to specific spell schools like the Eldritch Knight. Saying what I described is a "fighter subclass" is like saying the ranger or paladin are "fighter subclasses". It would be its own unique class with its own archetypes and subclasses.
Limiting a possible class to a mere subclass takes away so much versatility and creativity when making a character of that type.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Or.... they shouldn't be a caster. They should have a class feature, not unlike the Sun Soul, that lets them make a ranged attack, up to 30 foot range, that deals damage based on their Martial Arts die. But to use it, their hands must be free (pending subclass/element features). You know... like the characters in the show do.
As to it retaining features you won't use, ok, but that doesn't mean that other people wouldn't use them. And on it not being its own class, you've barely described it at all, the features you listed are not enough to be core features of a new class and you have given 0 details on what a subclass would do. I would be happy to help you design a magus class, but so far, everything you've asked for are ingredients of a subclass, not a class.
@AaronWho: Asking someone to pull an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal out of thin air in a discussion thread like this is obviously a no-go. If anybody had that sort of proposal ready, they wouldn't waste it on an argument like this. I could give an elevator pitch for a half-caster Shaman class with unusually impactful/important subclasses that actually change the way the Shaman plays, I could deliver that. I cannot deliver an entire UA class proposal, and I'm pretty sure you know that. It's beyond the scope of this thread. Kind of a disingenuous ask, to boot - "if you're not willing to design an entire class for me, on the spot, in a couple of minutes, sod off and go make subclasses".
Quite the unfair bar, hm?
@HollowTPM: Homebrew may be the 'basis of D&D'. It is also a total freaking nightmare to implement here on DDB. Much of anything beyond the most mild and ordinary of possible ideas is either flat-out impossible to get working in the digital sheet or requires such arcane counter-intuitive nonsense that it can take dozens of hours of trial and error just to get something together that's sort-of maybe close enough that a crafty DM could instruct a player on how to maybe use the feature with their character. Sort of. if they're lucky.
Until the homebrew tools improve dramatically and allow people to do things like custom base classes, custom spell progression, or many other things that are currently just straight-up, flat-out impossible to do in DDB's homebrew? People are going to call for Wizards to do it instead. because Wizards forcing DDB to implement something is the only time this service ever actually implements anything outside adding a +1 modifier to something.
Please do not contact or message me.
You don't seem to understand the development process. You start with an idea, and kick it around a little to refine it. You then build on that idea to flesh it out into something that mechanically is functional. Then you evaluate for balance and redistribute power as necessary.
We're at the first step, identifying and solidifying an idea. You seem to think we're on the third step, evaluating for balance.
Was that you, with the recipes and the different courses? I remember giving some notes to someone in a thread, but couldn’t remember the username and didn’t feel like digging through all of my posts to find it. Was that you?!?
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Ok, so it isn't a caster, it is a monk subclass that gets to pick an element, each element has its own features that it gets at certain levels so a fire and air don't play the same, still sounds like a subclass to me?
Yep that was me. Since the thread died very quickly I never actually posted the full subclass idea (it's not going public because frankly with the rate my game is going we'll be level 3 by 2030) but you gave a lot of good ideas for that and I did end up switching the entire general mechanic around thanks to your ideas. Had a lot of fun with it too :D
I wouldn’t say that they are wonderful or anything, but “total freaking nightmare” is a bit stronk.
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I never said you had to have "an entire, in-depth, 1 to 20 playtested and bug-proofed class proposal". I said that I want something that has had thought put into it. Saying "there should be Shaman" though, even in a discussion thread, is lazy. Give me something to work with.
Hey, I am super glad it worked out!! Please do me a favor and copy/paste it into a PM or something. I would love to see what all you came up with!
(Now if I could just find that other person with the mobility specialized fighter based off of the Battle Master/Arcane Archer mashup!)
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I mean; I never implied that people's published homebrews were good. Like the ones I created for my campaign are only good for these characters and the world I made. Just because DDB has a lot of meh homebrew doesn't make anything I said wrong. When the creators of a system say "change whatever you don't like" they basically said homebrew to make the game what you want it to be.
I think you got mixed up with this one, you should be responding to this post:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/80163-the-lack-of-new-classes-in-5e?comment=92
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"Lazy?" Come on, now you're insulting us? We literally never did that, don't go there.
We have put thought into it, but I know that I don't have the time and energy to create a Shaman class up to level 20 when no one besides someone random on the internet has asked me to.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It could be. But that has its own problems. Monks do not get subclass features until level 3, where as benders have their abilities practically from birth. I'm also hesitant to give all benders, wholesale, Unarmored Defense, Ki abilities in their entirety, Deflect Missiles (Air would obviously get this, but not Fire), Slow Fall (again, Air would, others would not), etc. Nevermind that it would inevitably be too similar to both the Sun Soul and the Way of 4 Elements, and likely invalidate both of those subclasses simply by existing.
Frankly, the only base class feature of the Monk that I see making sense on a bender would be Martial Arts. Honorable mentions to Air, though.
I wonder if standard rules for Class Feature Replacement would fly. For example